![]() These affinities resulted from a long past of fighting common enemies, a similarity of language, customs, artistic expressions, and so on. ![]() Psychological affinities also contributed to the formation of these regions. Regions were born, shaped by local factors such as geographic characteristics, military necessities, commercial interests, and the influx of pilgrims to popular shrines, students to renowned universities, and merchants to famous fairs. This new situation enabled people to expand their horizons, thoughts, and activities to gradually vaster fields. The regions are defined-the regional common good-the local lord It did not cease to expand for a long time.Ĭ. His mission, at once private and noble, was gradually broadened as Christian Europe, increasingly free of afflictions and external threats, enjoyed longer periods of peace. He became a miniature of the king, since his mission was an intrinsic participation in the nobility of the royal mission itself.įrom the spontaneous circumstances of history the figure of the landowner-lord emerged. Hence he automatically rose to a higher condition. The link between high public office and the nobiliary condition was such that, when the common good required that plebeians be elevated to these posts, they were usually ennobled, frequently with hereditary titles.Įndowed by circumstances with a mission higher than mere farming-namely, the partial overseeing of the salus publica in war and peace-the landowner found himself invested with local powers that normally belonged to the government. Most of the ministers, ambassadors, and generals were members of the nobility, which thus held posts indispensable to the exercise of the supreme government of the country. The higher nobles were frequently royal councillors. The nobility also participated in the central power of the monarch. More elevated and universal than the private common good, the public common good was intrinsically noble. As the king’s representatives in the area, they were also responsible for the common good of the public sphere. This noble class oversaw the common good of the private sphere, that is, the preservation and improvement of agriculture and livestock raising, from which both nobles and plebeians lived. Thus, the noble class developed as a subordinate participation in the royal power. The noble class: subordinate participation in royal power As such, he became a link of union with the king.ī. This made the landowner a lord, dominus, in the full sense of the word, with the duties of lawmaker and judge. Quite naturally, these circumstances translated during the intervals of peace into local political power over the surrounding lands. The condition of military leader and hero was now added to the condition of landowner. Their duty was to command, to be in the vanguard, leading the most daring offensives and the most determined resistance. In military action, the landowner and his family were the foremost combatants. Within these fortifications, peasants safeguarded the movable goods and livestock they had managed to save from the invaders’ greed. All received shelter, food, religious assistance, and military leadership in these fortifications that, with time, became imposing seignorial castles, of which so many still remain. True to the profoundly Christian spirit of the time, “their own” paternally included not only family members, but the manorial society, formed by the domestic servants, manual workers, and their respective families living on the lord’s lands. Heeding their request, the landowners built fortifications for themselves and for their own. Attacked on all sides and unable to resist with recourse to the greatly weakened central power of the kings, the populations naturally turned to their respective landowners, demanding that they command and govern them in such calamitous circumstances. Devastating incursions of barbarians, Normans, Hungarians, and Saracens preyed upon its ruins. The grand Carolingian empire had been reduced to rubble. The class of landowners constitutes a military nobility and a political authority It is the class that, unlike others, does not merely have elements of nobility, but is fully noble, entirely noble it is noble par excellence.Ī word about its historical origins is appropriate here.Ī. ![]() In this context, it is easier to understand what the nobility is.
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